My local swimming pool re-opened again today. It had been closed for the last ten days to help save power. Even now it’s only open until 18:30 each day. The Sumida City Gymnasium in nearby Kinshichou, which I go to on Tuesday when my local pool has its weekly closure day, has now re-opened its pool as well (repairs were needed to the adjustable pool floor which was damaged int he earthquake). It closes at 18:00 each day. I’ve been ill with a really bad cough for the last ten days anyway so probably would not have been able to swim during most of this period. I did my usual 50 lengths in just over 30 minutes – a little slower than standard but only just, so not bad after ten days off and while still a little under the weather. So, back to the exercise and diet regime now that I’m mostly well and that the pool is available again.

The supermarket had more stock back on the shelves again this evening, including a full load of milk at variant fat levels. I’ve learned how to distinguish the different milk types in Japanese. This was necessary since it turns out that the main problem with milk (and a lot of other drinks) seems to be that the main Japanese factory for making and printing tetra-paks (milk, juice, iced coffee and a nuimber of other beverages are still mostkly distributed using classic 1L tetrapaks in Japan) is in Tohoku and has been badly damaged by the quake. This means that not all the usual brands are available so I need to be able to read the labels quickly and easily. Unlike the UK where there were generally three types of milk ordinarily available (and mostly the milk producers had agreed a colour coordination scheme for the caps of the plastic bottles they all moved to a few years ago): skimmed (<1.0% fat: red cap), semi-skimmed (2% fat: green cap) “full” fat (3.6% fat: blue cap). Here they have: 無脂肪牛乳 mushibou gyuunyuu (0-0.5% fat); 低脂肪牛乳 teishibou gyuunyuu (05.-1.5% fat); 成分調整牛乳 seibun chousei gyuunyuu(1.5-3% fat, or 4+%, just to be confusing); 牛乳 gyuunyuu (must be full fat milk approx 3.6%). These are terms mandated by consumer protection law. Oh, they also have pseudo-milk drinks which include some milk content which are called 加工乳.

I’m not sure if this availability was just that I went in immediately after they put stock out for the coming-home-from-work crowd or if that supermarket now has more stock available than before. They’re still limiting milk purchase to one carton per customer, though. They had orange juice, though just one supplier (not my preferred brand but it will do). No yoghurt available at this point, though. The rest of what I wanted to buy (fajita ingredients: tortillas, peppers, mushrooms, spring onions, sour cream, chicken breast) was all available in pretty much normal quantities. Some other stuff is still limited, like instant ramen bowls.

I had a first meeting today with my Japanese colleague who was in the UK during the quake. He reported that his office was pretty much a shambles when he came back including a very heavy table he has in there which had been moved a good three feet and dumped all its covering of boks onto the floor. Most of the contents of his shelves had ended up on the floor, too. He’s on the 8th floor of that 12 storey building and some of the offices on storeys above were in worse condition he reported. In some the doors had become jamed and in other they couldn’t be opened without a lot of messing around due to the things (mostly books) that had colonised the floor behind them.

I am considering what I might do with our bookshelves to help in any future quakes here. The ones which aren’t already attached to the wall need to be so attached, that’s easy. But I think I need to try and put some kind of holder on the front of the shelves to keep the books on. I’m thinking that some curtain cord and hooks might be enough to do the job. We’ve already bought and applied something that was planned before the earthquake but not done at that point, which is some sticky gel material for holding down electricals and the like. It’s been applied to the flat screen TV (they’re far less stable than old CRTs of course) on the new unit which I built and installed the dayt before the quake. The TV has barely moved in the strong aftershocks we’ve had since so I think it’s in pretty good shape now. I did wonder about other possibilities as well, but I think the gel is sufficient. It’s pretty expensive, though. ~Y5000 for four decent size pieces to put under the TV stand feet. We’ve also sorted out a stopper for the sliding door kitchen cupboard. Funnily enough all the kitchen cupboard and related stoppers were sold out quite quickly after the quake from local DIY stores and similar.

Now that this shelving unit has been built we’ve finally got all the boxes of books emptied. There’s still the DVDs and some books in a couple of cupboards that I’d like to get onto other shelves at some point, but at least everything is out of boxes and the extra bedroom is cleared just in time. Any time now for that. Friends should keep an eye on the LJ version of the blog where a friends-locked announcement will be forthcoming at the appropriate time.